Have you heard the news? We're in a clean energy revolution. And where I live in Berkeley, California, it seems like every day I see a new roof with new solar panels going up, electric car in the driveway. Germany sometimes gets half its power from solar, and India is now committed to building 10 times more solar than we have in California, by the year 2022.
你聽說了嗎? 我們處於潔淨能源革命之中。 在我居住的加州柏克萊, 我幾乎每一天都能看到 新鋪上太陽能板的屋頂, 電動車停在家門前的車道。 德國有時能有一半能源來自太陽能, 印度現正籌備建設的 太陽能發電裝置數量, 比加州在 2022 年 將建成的還要多 10 倍。
Even nuclear seems to be making a comeback. Bill Gates is in China working with engineers, there's 40 different companies that are working together to try to race to build the first reactor that runs on waste, that can't melt down and is cheaper than coal. And so you might start to ask: Is this whole global warming problem going to be a lot easier to solve than anybody imagined? That was the question we wanted to know, so my colleagues and I decided to take a deep dive into the data. We were a little skeptical of some parts of the clean energy revolution story, but what we found really surprised us.
甚至核能似乎都捲土重來了。 比爾·蓋茨在中國與工程師合作, 40 家公司一起合作 試圖爭先建造第一個 依靠核廢料運行的反應堆, 它的爐心不會熔化, 而且比煤更便宜。 所以,你可能會想問: 那麼全球暖化問題 真的比任何人想像中 都要容易解決嗎? 這是我們想知道的問題, 所以我和同事決定深入研究數據。 我們對潔淨能源革命的故事 其中有某些地方有點疑問。 但是研究的結果卻讓我們感到驚訝。
The first thing is that clean energy has been increasing. This is electricity from clean energy sources over the last 20 years. But when you look at the percentage of global electricity from clean energy sources, it's actually been in decline from 36 percent to 31 percent. And if you care about climate change, you've got to go in the opposite direction to 100 percent of our electricity from clean energy sources, as quickly as possible. Now, you might wonder, "Come on, how much could five percentage points of global electricity be?" Well, it turns out to be quite a bit. It's the equivalent of 60 nuclear plants the size of Diablo Canyon, California's last nuclear plant, or 900 solar farms the size of Topaz, which is one of the biggest solar farms in the world, and certainly our biggest in California. A big part of this is simply that fossil fuels are increasing faster than clean energy. And that's understandable. There's just a lot of poor countries that are still using wood and dung and charcoal as their main source of energy, and they need modern fuels.
第一件事就是 潔淨能源的使用一直在增加。 這是潔淨能源過去 20 年的發電量。 但是,當你看全球電力的百分比 來自潔淨能源的部分, 實際上一直在下降, 從 36% 到 31%。 如果你在乎氣候變化, 你會覺得我們需要逆轉這個趨勢, 我們需要盡快把清潔能源所佔的 發電比例提升到 100%。 現在,你可能會問, 「嘿!全球電力的 5% 能有多少嘛?」 事實上,這並不少。 而是相當於 60 座核電廠── 代阿布洛峽谷核電廠──的發電量, 這是加州最後一座核電廠。 或 900 座托帕石 太陽能電廠的發電量, 這可是世界上 數一數二大的太陽能電廠。 當然也是加州最大的。 圖中大部分的區域顯示, 化石燃料持續增加, 比潔淨能源還快。 這是可以理解的, 還有很多貧窮國家 仍在使用木材、糞便和木炭 作為主要的能源要來源, 他們需要現代燃料。
But there's something else going on, which is that one of those clean energy sources in particular has actually been on the decline in absolute terms, not just relatively. And that's nuclear. You can see its generation has declined seven percent over the last 10 years. Now, solar and wind have been making huge strides, so you hear a lot of talk about how it doesn't really matter, because solar and wind is going to make up the difference. But the data says something different. When you combine all the electricity from solar and wind, you see it actually barely makes up half of the decline from nuclear. Let's take a closer look in the United States.
但還有別的事情, 那就是,有一項潔淨能源的數據 從絕對數值來看,其實一直在下降, 不只是相對數值, 這就是核能。 你可以看到核電發電量 在過去的 10 年下降了百分之七。 現在,太陽能和風能 已經有了巨大的進步, 所以你聽到了很多演講, 說核能其實並不重要, 因為太陽能和風能足以彌補差額。 但數據顯示並非如此。 當你把所有太陽和風能相加, 你看它實際上只能勉強彌補 核能下降值的一半。 讓我們來檢視美國的數據。
Over the last couple of years -- really 2013, 2014 -- we prematurely retired four nuclear power plants. They were almost entirely replaced with fossil fuels, and so the consequence was that we wiped out almost as much clean energy electricity that we get from solar. And it's not unique to us. People think of California as a clean energy and climate leader, but when we looked at the data, what we found is that, in fact, California reduced emissions more slowly than the national average, between 2000 and 2015.
在過去的幾年:2013—2014年, 我們提早除役了四座核電廠。 幾乎完全以化石燃料發電取代, 等同我們減少了 與太陽能發電量 幾乎相同的清潔電能。 這不是特例。 人們認為加州是潔淨能源和 對抗氣候變遷的領導者, 但是,當我們看了一下數據, 我們發現的是:事實上, 加州減少碳排放量速度 低於全國平均水準, 在 2000 和 2015 年之間。
What about Germany? They're doing a lot of clean energy. But when you look at the data, German emissions have actually been going up since 2009, and there's really not anybody who's going to tell you that they're going to meet their climate commitments in 2020.
至於德國呢? 他們有很多潔淨能源。 但是,當你看一下數據, 德國的排放量居然 自 2009 年以來一直往上走, 真的沒有任何人能告訴你 他們要怎麼達成 2020 年的減碳承諾。
The reason isn't hard to understand. Solar and wind provide power about 10 to 20 percent of the time, which means that when the sun's not shining, the wind's not blowing, you still need power for your hospitals, your homes, your cities, your factories. And while batteries have made some really cool improvements lately, the truth is, they're just never going to be as efficient as the electrical grid. Every time you put electricity into a battery and take it out, you lose about 20 to 40 percent of the power. That's why when, in California, we try to deal with all the solar we've brought online -- we now get about 10 percent of electricity from solar -- when the sun goes down, and people come home from work and turn on their air conditioners and their TV sets, and every other appliance in the house, we need a lot of natural gas backup. So what we've been doing is stuffing a lot of natural gas into the side of a mountain. And that worked pretty well for a while, but then late last year, it sprung a leak. This is Aliso Canyon. So much methane gas was released, it was the equivalent of putting half a million cars on the road. It basically blew through all of our climate commitments for the year.
究其原因不難理解。 太陽能和風能可提供電能時間 約佔一天中 10% 到 20%, 這意味著當沒陽光照耀、風不吹拂, 但醫院、城市及工廠仍需要電力。 電池在最近已經取得不小進步, 事實是,電池永遠不會像 電網一樣有效率。 每回你將電能以電池儲存後, 再次將它拿出來, 就會損失約 20% 至 40% 電能。 這就是為什麼在加州 我們試圖將太陽能與電網相連 我們現在約 10% 電力 取自太陽能發電。 當太陽下山、人們下班回家, 打開他們的空調、電視機, 及屋裡其他電器, 我們需要大量的天然氣備載電力。 因此,我們一直將 大量天然氣儲存於一座山中。 這工作已持續好一陣子了, 但去年年底,它不斷洩漏。 這是加州阿利索峽谷。 這麼多的甲烷氣外洩, 等於是相當於五千輛 汽車在道路行駛。 它基本上已超出 我們全年的碳排放量承諾。
Well, what about India? Sometimes you have to go places to really get the right data, so we traveled to India a few months ago. We met with all the top officials -- solar, nuclear, the rest -- and what they told us is, "We're actually having more serious problems than both Germany and California. We don't have backup; we don't have all the natural gas. And that's just the start of it. Say we want to get to 100 gigawatts by 2022. But last year we did just five, and the year before that, we did five."
那麼,看看印度的情形? 有時你要得到正確的數據, 還不得不親自跑一趟。 因此,我們在幾個月前到訪印度。 我們會見了所有的高級官員── 管太陽能、核能及其他種種── 他們告訴我們: 「我們實際上還有比德國和加州 更嚴重的問題。 我們沒有備載,沒有足量的天然氣。 而這只是開端, 假設我們預計到 2022 年 達到 100 萬千瓦。 但去年我們只建了 5 萬千瓦, 而在這之前一年, 我們建了 5 萬千瓦。」
So, let's just take a closer look at nuclear. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has looked at the carbon content of all these different fuels, and nuclear comes out really low -- it's actually lower even than solar. And nuclear obviously provides a lot of power -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During a year, a single plant can provide power 92 percent of the time. What's interesting is that when you look at countries that have deployed different kinds of clean energies, there's only a few that have done so at a pace consistent with dealing with the climate crisis.
所以,讓我們仔細審視核能。 聯合國政府間氣候變遷專門委員會 一直關注所有不同燃料的排碳量, 核能真的很低── 實際上甚至低於太陽能。 而且明顯能提供了大量的電能── 每天 24 小時,每週七天。 一座核電廠一年中有 92% 的時間可以提供電力。 有趣的是,當你看那些 已經發展各式潔淨能源的國家, 只有幾個在處理環境危機上 採取與治理環境一致的步伐。
So nuclear seems like a pretty good option, but there's this big problem with it, which all of you, I'm sure, are aware of, which is that people really don't like it. There was a study, a survey done of people around the world, not just in the United States or Europe, about a year and a half ago. And what they found is that nuclear is actually one of the least popular forms of energy. Even oil is more popular than nuclear. And while nuclear kind of edges out coal, the thing is, people don't really fear coal in the same way they fear nuclear, which really operates on our unconscious.
因此,核能似乎是相當不錯的選擇, 但是核能有個大問題, 我敢肯定你們都知道的, 就是人們真的不喜歡它。 大約一年半前有一項研究, 針對世界各地的人們, 不只是在美國或歐洲, 所進行的調查。 他們發現 核能是最不受歡迎的能源形式。 甚至石油都比核能更受歡迎。 雖然核能替代了煤,但實情是, 人並不像懼怕核能那樣害怕煤, 這確實在存在我們的潛意識中。
So what is it that we fear? There's really three things. There's the safety of the plants themselves -- the fears that they're going to melt down and cause damage; there's the waste from them; and there's the association with weapons. And I think, understandably, engineers look at those concerns and look for technological fixes. That's why Bill Gates is in China developing advanced reactors. That's why 40 different entrepreneurs are working on this problem. And I, myself, have been very excited about it.
那麼,是什麼讓我們恐懼? 有三件確定的事: 核電廠本身的安全── 害怕爐心熔化,造成損壞。 其次是核電廠的核廢料。 最後還有與核武器的關聯。 我認為,這是可以理解的, 工程師專注於這些疑慮, 並在技術上加以修正。 這就是為什麼比爾·蓋茨 在中國開發先進的反應器。 這就是為什麼 40 個不同的企業家 正在研究這個問題。 而我自己,一直對此非常興奮。
We did a report: "How to Make Nuclear Cheap." In particular, the thorium reactor shows a lot of promise. So when the climate scientist, James Hansen, asked if I wanted to go to China with him and look at the Chinese advanced nuclear program, I jumped at the chance. We were there with MIT and UC Berkeley engineers. And I had in my mind that the Chinese would be able to do with nuclear what they did with so many other things -- start to crank out small nuclear reactors on assembly lines, ship them up like iPhones or MacBooks and send them around the world. I would get one at home in Berkeley. But what I found was somewhat different. The presentations were all very exciting and very promising; they have multiple reactors that they're working on. The time came for the thorium reactor, and a bunch of us were excited. They went through the whole presentation, they got to the timeline, and they said, "We're going to have a thorium molten salt reactor ready for sale to the world by 2040." And I was like, "What?"
我們完成一份報告: 「如何使核能變便宜。」 特別是,釷反應器 使很多事變得可行。 所以當氣候科學家詹姆斯·漢森 詢問我是否願意到與他到中國去, 並瞧瞧中國的先進核能計劃, 我立刻躍躍欲試。 我們與麻省理工和加大 柏克萊分校的工程師到那裡。 我腦中相信 中國能夠將核能做起來。 就像他們已經完成的其他許多事情── 開始在生產線上製出小型核反應器, 把它們裝船像 iPhone 或 MacBook 筆電般運到世界各地。 我在柏克萊的家中也能弄到一個。 但我發現有些不同。 這些介紹都非常令人興奮 且覺得前途似錦。 他們擁有多個反應器且正在運行, 介紹釷反應器時, 我們一幫人都很興奮。 他們介紹完了,談到計畫時程時, 他們說: 「我們不得不將釷熔鹽反應器 上市的時間訂於 2040 年。」 我當時就像這樣──「啥?」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I looked at my colleagues and I was like, "Excuse me -- can you guys speed that up a little bit? Because we're in a little bit of a climate crisis right now. And your cities are really polluted, by the way." And they responded back, they were like, "I'm not sure what you've heard about our thorium program, but we don't have a third of our budget, and your department of energy hasn't been particularly forthcoming with all that data you guys have on testing reactors." And I said, "Well, I've got an idea. You know how you've got 10 years where you're demonstrating that reactor? Let's just skip that part, and let's just go right to commercializing it. That will save money and time." And the engineer just looked at me and said, "Let me ask you a question: Would you buy a car that had never been demonstrated before?"
我看了看我的同事,然後就像這樣, 「對不起── 你們可以稍微加速一點嗎? 因為我們現在有一點氣候危機, 而且你們的城市污染真的很嚴重。」 他們回應道,他們也想, 「我不知道你對我們的 釷計劃聽到了什麼, 但我們連三分之一的預算都沒有, 你們的能源部好像也不是很主動 公開你們測試的反應器數據。」 我說:「嗯,我有一個想法。 你知道你們已經花了 10 年展示這反應器? 讓我們跳過這一部分, 直接商業化。 這將節省時間和金錢。」 工程師看著我,說: 「讓我問你一個問題: 你會買一輛從來沒有 展示過的汽車嗎?」
So what about the other reactors? There's a reactor that's coming online now, they're starting to sell it. It's a high-temperature gas reactor. It can't melt down. But it's really big and bulky, that's part of the safety, and nobody thinks it's going to ever get cheaper than the reactors that we have. The ones that use waste as fuel are really cool ideas, but the truth is, we don't actually know how to do that yet. There's some risk that you'll actually make more waste, and most people think that if you're including that waste part of the process, it's just going to make the whole machine a lot more expensive, it's just adding another complicated step.
那麼,關於其他的反應器呢? 也就說即將上線的反應器, 現在他們已經開始出售了。 這是一個高溫氣體反應器。 它不會熔毀。 但它確實又大又笨重, 這是安全的一部分, 沒有人認為會有 比我們更便宜的反應器。 使用核廢料作為燃料 真的是很酷的想法,但事實是: 我們實際上並不知道該怎麼做。 你要冒著實際上製造 更多核廢料的風險, 大多數人認為如果你把 處理廢料的部份加上去, 整個機器將更加而昂貴不少, 它只是增加另一個複雜的步驟。
The truth is, there's real questions about how much of that we're going to do. I mean, we went to India and asked about the nuclear program. The government said before the Paris climate talks that they were going to do something like 30 new nuclear plants. But when we got there and interviewed people and even looked at the internal documents, they're now saying they're going to do about five. And in most of the world, especially the rich world, they're not talking about building new reactors. We're actually talking about taking reactors down before their lifetimes are over. Germany's actually pressuring its neighbors to do that. I mentioned the United States -- we could lose half of our reactors over the next 15 years, which would wipe out 40 percent of the emissions reductions we're supposed to get under the Clean Power Plan. Of course, in Japan, they took all their nuclear plants offline, replaced them with coal, natural gas, oil burning, and they're only expected to bring online about a third to two-thirds.
事實是, 有多少真正的問題是 我們要處理的。 我的意思是,我們去了印度, 並要求看核能計劃。 政府表示,巴黎的氣候談判之前 他們打算做些什麼, 例如蓋 30 座新的核電廠。 但是,當我們到了那裡 並採訪相關人士 甚至看了看內部文件, 他們現在說大約要蓋 5 座。 而在世界上大多數國家, 尤其是有錢人的世界, 他們不要建立新的核反應器。 我們實際上是在談論 在使用期限前將其除役。 德國實際上正施壓鄰國這樣做。 我提到美國── 在接下來的 15 年裡, 我們可能會關掉一半的反應器。 這將使碳排放減少 40%。 前提是得全由潔淨能源取代才行。 當然,在日本, 他們將所有的核電廠下線, 用煤、天然氣及石油取而代之, 而他們只預期將約三分之一 到三分之二的反應器再上線。
So when we went through the numbers, and just added that up -- how much nuclear do we see China and India bringing online over the next 15 years, how much do we see at risk of being taken offline -- this was the most startling finding. What we found is that the world is actually at risk of losing four times more clean energy than we lost over the last 10 years. In other words: we're not in a clean energy revolution; we're in a clean energy crisis. So it's understandable that engineers would look for a technical fix to the fears that people have of nuclear. But when you consider that these are big challenges to do, that they're going to take a long time to solve, there's this other issue, which is: Are those technical fixes really going to solve people's fears?
所以,當我們核算一下數字, 給它們算了算── 接下來的 15 年裡, 中國和印度將有多少核電廠上線, 有多少是有被下線的風險 。 這是最令人吃驚的發現。 我們發現的是, 世界其實是有風險可能失去 4 倍於過去 10 年減少的潔淨能源。 換句話說:我們不處於 潔淨能源革命, 而是在潔淨能源危機中。 所以工程師將尋求技術性修正, 人們對核能的疑慮是可以理解的。 但是,當你考慮 這些都是巨大的挑戰, 他們要花費很長的時間來解決, 還有這另一個問題,這就是: 那些技術性修正 真的能解決人們的恐慌、
Let's take safety. You know, despite what people think, it's hard to figure out how to make nuclear power much safer. I mean, every medical journal that looks at it -- this is the most recent study from the British journal, "Lancet," one of the most respected journals in the world -- nuclear is the safest way to make reliable power. Everybody's scared of the accidents. So you go look at the accident data -- Fukushima, Chernobyl -- the World Health Organization finds the same thing: the vast majority of harm is caused by people panicking, and they're panicking because they're afraid. In other words, the harm that's caused isn't actually caused by the machines or the radiation. It's caused by our fears.
使我們感到安全嗎? 要知道,儘管人們這樣想, 還是很難弄清楚 如何才能使核電更加安全。 我的意思是,每本 探討這個問題的醫學期刊── 這是英國醫學期刊 《刺胳針》最近的研究。 這是世上最受尊敬的期刊之一。 核能是最安全可靠的能源。 發生事故時,每個人都嚇壞了。 所以,你去看看事故的數據── 福島、車諾比爾── 世界衛生組織發現同樣的事情: 絕大多數的危害是人們恐慌造成的, 他們恐慌,因為他們害怕。 換一種說法, 造成損害的不是實際的機器 或輻射。 它是恐懼。
And what about the waste? Everyone worries about the waste. Well, the interesting thing about the waste is how little of it there is. This is just from one plant. If you take all the nuclear waste we've ever made in the United States, put it on a football field, stacked it up, it would only reach 20 feet high. And people say it's poisoning people or doing something -- it's not, it's just sitting there, it's just being monitored. There's not very much of it. By contrast, the waste that we don't control from energy production -- we call it "pollution," and it kills seven million people a year, and it's threatening very serious levels of global warming. And the truth is that even if we get good at using that waste as fuel, there's always going to be some fuel left over. That means there's always going to be people that think it's a big problem for reasons that maybe don't have as much to do with the actual waste as we think.
那核廢料呢? 每個人都擔心核廢料。 好了,關於核廢料有趣的是: 它有多麼小。 這是從一個核電廠運出來的廢料。 如果你把所有我們美國生產的核廢料 放在足球場上堆積起來, 它只會達到 6.1 公尺高。 人們說這會使人中毒 或造成一些事情。 它不會,它只是放在那裡, 被監控著,就只是這樣而已。 相較之下,能源生產中 不受控制的廢料── 我們稱之為「污染」, 一年殺死七百萬人, 並造成全球暖化的嚴重威脅。 而事實是,即使我們能 善用核廢物作為燃料, 總是有一些核燃料遺留下來。 這意味著有總是有人認為 這是一個大問題。 他們的顧慮也許和廢料 沒有多大的關係。
Well, what about the weapons? Maybe the most surprising thing is that we can't find any examples of countries that have nuclear power and then, "Oh!" decide to go get a weapon. In fact, it works the opposite. What we find is the only way we know how to get rid large numbers of nuclear weapons is by using the plutonium in the warheads as fuel in our nuclear power plants. And so, if you are wanting to get the world rid of nuclear weapons, then we're going to need a lot more nuclear power.
那麼,核電與核武的關聯呢? 也許最令人吃驚的事情是, 我們找不到任何的例子, 有擁有核電的國家表示, 「哦!」決定把核料變成核武。 事實上,它的工作原理是相反的。 我們發現目前所知, 能擺脫大量核武的唯一途徑, 就是將核武中的鈽彈頭 做為核電廠的燃料。 所以,如果你讓世界擺脫核武器, 那麼我們會需要更大量的核電。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
As I was leaving China, the engineer that brought Bill Gates there kind of pulled me aside, and he said, "You know, Michael, I appreciate your interest in all the different nuclear supply technologies, but there's this more basic issue, which is that there's just not enough global demand. I mean, we can crank out these machines on assembly lines, we do know how to make things cheap, but there's just not enough people that want them."
當我要離開中國時, 帶比爾·蓋茨到那裡的 工程師把我拉到一邊, 他說:「邁克爾我感謝你 關注所有不同的核能供應技術, 但眼前有更根本的問題, 我們的全球需求有限。 我的意思是,我們在 生產線組裝這些機器、 我們知道如何讓東西便宜, 但只是沒有足夠的買主。」
And so, let's do solar and wind and efficiency and conservation. Let's accelerate the advanced nuclear programs. I think we should triple the amount of money we're spending on it. But I just think the most important thing, if we're going to overcome the climate crisis, is to keep in mind that the cause of the clean energy crisis isn't from within our machines, it's from within ourselves.
所以,讓我們先改進太陽能 和風能的效率和保存。 我們要加快先進核能計劃。 我認為應該多花三倍錢就可以了。 但我認為當務之急是: 如果我們要克服氣候危機, 是要記住,引發潔淨能源危機的, 不是我們的機器, 這是我們內心的恐懼。
Thank you very much.
非常感謝你。
(Applause)
(掌聲)